Rolling Down to Old Maui
Rolling Down to Old Maui ( Roud 2005) is a shanty . It expresses the anticipation of a whaler's crew to return to tropical Maui after a tough whaling season in the arctic waters of Kamchatka .
A clearly related text Rolling Down to Old Mohee has come down to us from the logbook of the Atkins Adams from New Bedford from 1858. The lyrics in their present form are first documented without a melody in Joanna Colcord's Songs of American Sailormen in 1938.
The song has been performed and recorded by many shanty singers and groups, including Stan Rogers , The Revels , The Dreadnoughts, and Jon Boden .
The melody was used in whole or in part for other folk songs and parodies, such as "The Light-Ship" by Leslie Fish and "Falling Down on New Jersey" by Mitchell Burnside-Clapp .
song lyrics
It's a damn tough life full of toil and strife
We whalermen undergo.
And we don't give a damn when the gale is done
How hard the winds did blow.
For we're homeward bound from the Arctic ground
With a good ship, taut and free
And we don't give a damn when we drink our rum
With the girls of Old Maui.
Refrain:
Rolling down to Old Maui, me boys
Rolling down to Old Maui
We're homeward bound from the Arctic ground
Rolling down to Old Maui.
Once more we sail with a northerly gale
through the ice and wind and rain.
Them coconut fronds, them tropical lands
We soon shall see again.
Six hellish months have passed away
On the cold Kamchatka Sea,
But now we're bound from the Arctic ground
Rolling down to Old Maui.
Refrain
Once more we sail with a northerly gale
Towards our island home.
Our mainmast sprung, our whaling done,
And we ain't got far to roam.
Our stu'n's'l bones / booms is carried away
What care we for that sound?
A living gale is after us,
Thank God we're homeward bound.
Refrain
How soft the breeze through the island trees,
Now the ice is far aster.
Them native maids, them tropical glades
Is a-waiting our return.
Even now their big brown eyes look out
Hoping some fine day to see
Our baggy sails runnin '' fore the gales
Rolling down to old Maui.
Refrain
this verse is only found in a few versions
And now we're anchored in the bay
With the Kanakas all around
With chants and soft aloha oes
They greet us homeward bound.
And now ashore we'll have good fun
We'll paint them beaches red
Awaking in the arms of a wahine
With a big fat aching head.
refrain